


The Secret's In the Sauce

by LadyTuesday



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Lust Potion/Spell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 16:56:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyTuesday/pseuds/LadyTuesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione needs this potion, but can Snape bring himself to procure the ingredient that she needs the most? Complete in three parts. </p><p>From the "Ingredient Challenge" at WIKTT.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Recipe for Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> A little smutty ditty in three parts. From the minute I read this challenge on WIKTT (details of the challenge included after the last chapter), I could NOT get this plot bunny out of my head. It was too fun not to write. Bwuahahahaha. So here it is, a little random bit of smutty nothing. 
> 
> Enjoy,  
> ~~ ** Lady Tuesday ** ~~

**_The Secret’s in the Sauce_ **

**Part One – A Recipe for Disaster**

 

Severus Snape scowled as he hitched the unconscious body further up his shoulder. The last thing he needed on a night like this was to be on this particular doorstep with this particular person slung across his shoulders like a sack of meal. He sighed heavily. He’d been standing here for a few seconds, not really wanting to knock, sure that the wards on the house would go crazy if he stood there long enough. He wasn’t disappointed. After a few moments of indecision and hesitation, he heard movement and stumbling behind the door. Snape quickly shifted the body from his shoulders into a cradle in his arms, hoping that this would give them impression that his lack of knock had come not from fear but from being physically indisposed to do so.

The door swung to, and Snape had to stifle a growl at who was behind it. “Severus!” the ragged, weary voice cried.

Snape growled slightly and brushed past Remus Lupin as he invited himself into Grimmauld Place. “As you might have guessed with your amazing powers of deductive reasoning, Lupin, this is not the moment for casual greetings.”

“Of course, Severus,” Remus responded and flattened himself against the wall and out of the way immediately. He raised a hand to point towards the library on the left. “You should bring her in there. Dumbledore and Minerva are here; we’ve all been so worried.”

Snape let out a gruff grunt of acknowledgment and moved down the hall towards the room Remus had indicated. He growled slightly as he crossed the threshold; the room was peopled with all the least welcome personages in his life, with the possible exception of the girl slung across his arms. The youngest two Weasleys stood in the corner, the bungling Ronald pacing, Ginevra sitting on the floor picking at the carpet nervously; Remus Lupin had just reentered from the door behind him, and moved to stand behind the chair where the Potter boy sat, staring blankly into space and fingering the wand laid across his lap. The only welcome sights were behind the desk in front of the fire where Minerva sat in an uncomfortable-looking high-backed chair conversing with Albus, who sat behind the heavy mahogany desk, gazing at a letter on the blotter in front of him but obviously not really seeing it. Severus dropped the girl unceremoniously but not harshly to the cracked leather couch and backed away as everyone in the room ran to assess her form. He then retreated as quickly as possible to the large curtained windows, scowling out at the rain.

“Is she—?” Harry Potter asked, his voice cracking with strain. 

Severus looked over at the boy and couldn't help but grimace at the dark rings beneath his eyes and the determined wringing of his hands. “No,” he responded shortly. “But her current condition is not enviable in the slightest.” When everyone in the room turned to stare at him, he returned his sharp gaze to contemplation of the rain.

“What's wrong with her?” Ron Weasley asked. He was hovering over the couch on which she lay, scouring her face and person with his eyes, trying to discern evidence of something that must be quite hideous indeed, if _Snape_ were to say it wasn't enviable.

“Is she unharmed, Severus?” Dumbledore asked quietly.

Severus turned to regard the aged wizard behind the desk across the room. Very little genuinely ruffled the man, and this seemed to be no exception, but after seventeen years of teaching for him and seven years as his pupil, Severus could see the worry behind Albus Dumbledore's eyes. The girl had been missing for nearly a day and a half, snatched away by Death Eaters after a skirmish on Boxing Day in Diagon Alley. The Order of the Phoenix, he knew, had been turning itself upside down to find the Hogwarts Head Girl. 

“Physically, yes,” Severus answered in a tight, clipped voice. “In a manner of speaking. She has not been beaten, injured, raped—" he nearly smiled when everyone in the room except Albus flinched at his bald narrative, “—or subjected to any Unforgivables that I can discern, Headmaster.”

Everyone breathed an audible sighed of relief, but Dumbledore steepled his fingers in front of him and gazed deeply at Severus. “But something has been inflicted upon her?” he asked evenly.

Severus stared around the room. He had no desire whatsoever to divulge the nature of her condition, considering present company. His eyes narrowed as they landed on Potter and the two Weasleys. “Leave,” he said curtly.

As a unit, the three were on their feet and glaring at him. 

“Absolutely not! If Hermione’s hurt—”

“—not leaving until you say what’s wrong—”

“—don’t know who you think you are, bossing us about when we've all been so worried—”

Snape merely smirked at the three, who'd all begun talking at once. Waiting them out, Severus drew his long, thick robes closer around him and dredged up his most intimidating scowl. It took a few seconds for the look to sink in, but it had the desired affect. Silence washed over the room.

“I most certainly will not discuss Miss Granger's condition in the existing company. Neither she nor I would be benefited from it, nor do I believe that Miss Granger would wish such a situation to be common knowledge.”

“She's our best friend!” Ronald nearly shouted.

“If something's wrong with her,” Potter continued, but all the quieter for Weasley's outburst, “we ought to know.”

Ginny merely fumed at him, her arms crossed over her chest. Dumbledore regarded the situation calmly.

“Severus,” McGonagall interjected softly, “they are her closest friends, perhaps—”

“Absolutely not,” he responded firmly before Minerva could continue with her plea.

Everyone seemed to turn as one to regard Dumbledore for a final ruling. Dumbledore looked to Severus. After a moment, he nodded shortly. “Mr. Weasley, Miss Weasley,” Dumbledore said, nodding to each one of them in turn. “Mr. Potter, perhaps it would be best, just for now, if you vacated the room so that Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, Remus and I might discuss Miss Granger's condition.” They stared at him in shock for a moment and then began to protest again as one. He held up his hands and waited for silence. “I have a feeling that her situation is quite delicate, and I would not want to jeopardize Miss Granger's condition until we have ascertained what is best to be done. Trust me that I will inform you immediately if she is in any real danger or if assistance is needed on her behalf.”

Ron's face was crimson with anger, and Ginny scowled fiercely at everyone in turn, but Harry just sighed heavily and walked over to the couch where Hermione lay. After patting her face gently with one hand, he nodded. “Come on, guys,” he said and turned to walk out. The others reluctantly followed. At the door, Harry stopped and shot a hot glare towards Snape. “If you did anything to her and I find out I could have helped, I’ll find any way I can to make you suffer.”

“Mr. Potter!” McGonagall cried, her hands going immediately to her hips.

Snape scoffed loudly.

“Let him go, Minerva,” Lupin said as the stern-faced Gryffindor Head moved to intercept her retreating student. “He’s just scared, that’s all.”

As soon as the door clicked shut behind Harry, the three remaining adults turned to regard Severus Snape staring morosely out the window. His gaze seemed so angry and piercing that the rest of them might have assumed that he was trying to injure either the pane of glass in front of him or the street outside. When Snape made no immediate move to divulge the situation, Dumbledore cleared his throat.

“Severus?” he asked. “Perhaps you could inform us as to Miss Granger's circumstances and why the state of affairs is so objectionable?”

“And tell us why the poor girl is unconscious, if she is unharmed?” Remus said.

Grumbling a bit as he turned away from the window, Snape fought the urge to tug at his cuffs — a nervous gesture since childhood. “She has had a rather unfortunate curse cast upon her that will make proceeding as normal rather difficult. Perhaps even impossible.”

“Well, get on with it, won’t you, Severus?” McGonagall spat out. For all that she sounded biting, her seventeen-year colleague could see that she worried over the girl on the couch. Her eyes kept drifting to and from where Granger had begun to stir just slightly and moan lightly in her sleep.

Snape sighed before starting to pace the room, ramrod straight. He had no idea how he would get out of this. “She was kidnapped, of course, on Boxing Day. Lucius, to be specific, but I don't know that that would shock anyone.” He paused momentarily for the grumbles and nods of assent. “Obviously, the Dark Lord—” McGonagall scoffed loudly, “—did not wish me to take part in the skirmish, so I held back, but I did get summoned later that evening for a Revel.”

He no longer could chance looking anyone in the eye, so strode to the hearth and stared into the fire. “When I arrived at the Revel, Lucius informed me that he had a surprise to show me.” This time it was Snape, himself, who scoffed. “Miss Granger was … given to me. As a ‘gift.’”

McGonagall began stalking the room, making noises in the back of her throat like an angry cat. Remus sighed heavily and dropped into a chair, scrubbing his face with his hands.

Dumbledore sighed. “She wasn’t meant for you originally, was she?”

Snape's head snapped around to face the old wizard, panic clear on his face before he capped it. His voice wasn't quite as smooth as he would have wished. “No,” he said bluntly. “No, she wasn't.”

“Who was she meant for?” Remus asked, no little amount of disgust in his voice.

“Lucius. Considered it quite the lovely little trophy, I’m sure, having the Head Girl and prize Gryffindor to do with as he pleased. And yes, Minerva, I mean that exactly as you believe I mean it,” he said, directing the final comment to the woman who had stopped her pacing to gape at him. “Well, certainly I couldn’t allow her to drop into Lucius’s hands, so when I interrupted him in his intentions, he declared it a wonderful idea to give her to me instead.” Snape's face twisted in rage and disgust.

“So what happened to her?” Remus asked. When Snape's sneer turned to him, he spread his hands in peace and then directed his gesture towards Hermione. “Severus, she’s been missing for two days, and then you show up with her unconscious in your arms and say that she won't be able to continue on with normal life. Obviously, you wouldn’t want those particular details that you've just shared to get back to Hermione, but you still haven’t said what happened to her. Why is she unconscious? If she escaped unharmed, why will it be hard for her to return to normal life?”

“Oh, I don’t think Severus meant that she escaped the situation completely unscathed,” Dumbledore interjected calmly. “He merely said she didn’t suffer physical injury. Isn’t that right, Severus?”

Snape sighed heavily before nodding. “Lucius had intended to … violate her. When I stepped in, he decided that it would not only be much more _amusing_ —” he said this with great scorn, "—and far more humiliating to her in the long run should she be magically compelled instead.”

“So he cast a curse on her?” Remus asked, bewildered.

“Indeed. Ever heard of the Connubialis Curse?” Snape sneered at the blank looks on every face but Dumbledore’s. “I suspected as much. It is a curse of the Dark Lord’s own making—from his earlier days, when that sort of debauchery was still possible for him—so it is naturally only well-known within the ranks of his followers.”

“What does it do?”

Snape couldn’t stop his tongue from skimming throughout his mouth, as if trying to remove a displeasing taste. “Compels the victim to sexual attraction and overwhelming desire for the caster. Naturally, you can understand why this would present rather uncomfortable humiliation for Miss Granger and thorough amusement for a wretch like Lucius Malfoy.”

“But if Lucius cast the curse, how is it that she is your gift?” McGonagall asked. 

Snape flinched as if he had struck her, but again seemed to be washing out the inside of his mouth with his tongue. “I protested Lucius’s suggestion of the charm, insisting that I was perfectly capable of seduction without magical aid—” 

“How could you even think of seducing that poor child?” McGonagall cried, horrified.

“Oh, please, Minerva,” Snape sneered. “I had no intention of the sort. I had merely hoped to remove her from the situation under the guise of needing privacy. Lucius felt this did not allow him to be magnanimous enough as a host and enlisted a few of his colleagues to attack me and subject me to the Imperius curse.” Snape scowled heavily. “Because they ‘sucker-punched’ me—to borrow a Muggle phrase—it took me a moment to shake off the curse. Too long. Lucius bid me cast the charm on her with my wand. He seemed to have no qualms forcing me to do something he considered in my best interest. ‘Always a spoil-sport for the better fun,’” Snape mocked in an overly flowery voice. “Thus, my magical signature is attached to the curse. She is bound to me. Lucius thought it quite apt, handing me a magically-compelled Gryffindor bed partner with no choice but to submit to my every whim.”

“How generous of him,” Dumbledore said dryly. 

“Quite,” Snape responded curtly. “The curse’s symptoms magnify in strength the longer it goes untreated, so naturally I Stunned her so that she would not be compelled to set upon me immediately or at random intervals.”

Lupin gazed at him with such pity that he wanted to slap the man; Minerva looked as if she wanted to vomit or scream. Severus sympathized: he wanted to vomit, scream, send the girl away, kill Lucius … any number of vicious things popped into his mind. Dumbledore sighed again.

“I believe you did right to temporarily save her from herself, Severus.” Dumbledore’s blue eyes were troubled as he leaned back in the desk chair. “I take it that there are no counter-curses?”

“No. The Dark Lord wouldn’t permit the charm to be counteracted. He and his followers would expect the curse to be either completed or denied until such a time that the victim was so helpless from need that they suffered a series of seizures and died twitching. The Dark Lord and his followers used to consider this quite amusing. There is no counter-curse that I know of and only one way to thoroughly dispel the charm. There is a way to stave off the curse, but it is only temporary and highly unacceptable.”

“Well, anything has to be better than letting Hermione run mad with … need,” McGonagall said, horror-struck, “before suffering a heart attack and dying, hasn’t it?”

“I’m not certain of that,” Snape said, but did not continue.

“I’m assuming that the way to ‘dispel’ the curse and release the victim would be to engage in intercourse,” Dumbledore said heavily. 

“To put it mildly,” Snape answered. He resumed his pacing around the room, his fury now counterbalancing the embarrassment and discomfort. “And obviously, that option is completely out of the question.”

“I should say so!” Minerva answered. 

“So what is the way you mentioned to stave it off? Even if it’s temporary, perhaps something can be done in the interim?”

Severus cleared his throat and looked to Dumbledore. The older wizard raised his eyebrows and gazed at him knowingly but did not venture any explanation. “It is a potion.”

“Well, that’s perfect then!” Lupin said, smiling.

“Hardly,” Severus said, scowling. “It is ridiculously complex—” 

“If you can make the Wolfsbane for me—”

“— a combination of Draught of Peace, Amortensia—”

“A love potion?” McGonagall broke in. “How will that help?”

“—and contains a certain ingredient that is … decidedly personal in nature.”

Everyone dropped silent for a moment as they contemplated this. Then with an audible explosion of breath, Lupin began laughing in a loud bark of hilarity. Snape whirled around to face the man, glaring through narrowed eyes. Any lesser man would have quailed under the force of the glower, but this just made Remus laugh harder. 

“Oh, no wonder you don’t want to make the potion,” he said between guffaws. “That’d prove somewhat embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”

Snape glared at him, silently fuming, and fingered his wand. Hexing the man wouldn’t solve his problem or the embarrassment, but at this point still seemed like a highly favorable option. “It is out of the question,” he said in a tone that brooked no refusal.

“What does it contain?” McGonagall asked, now scowling at Lupin as he continued to laugh.

Snape rounded on Dumbledore. “There must be something else that can be done.”

Dumbledore opened his mouth to respond, but McGonagall cut him off.

“What does the potion contain that is so objectionable?” When no one answered her, she strode across the room to stand between Lupin and Snape. “What does it contain?” she said firmly, glaring at both men. “As Miss Granger’s Head of House, I feel that I have the right to know what options are open to her.”

Lupin seemed to have gotten a control over his mirth. “I’d stake my life on the fact that this potion that he says will help contains a certain … _essence_ , shall we say, that Severus doesn’t part with very often.”

Snape's eyes were murderous as he drew his wand and trained his aim at the other man. 

“And just what is that supposed to—” McGonagall began.

“Severus, put that away,” Dumbledore said. 

Realization seemed to have slammed into McGonagall. “You can’t be serious. You don’t mean—?”

Severus stowed his wand back under his sleeve with a swift, angry gesture. “Semen,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “Mine, to be specific.”

“Well,” McGonagall stopped to clear her throat. “It wouldn’t _have_ to be … yours, would it?”

“Don’t be a fool,” he said tersely. “If the curse, for all intents and purposes, came from me, the magical and—” he cleared his throat roughly, “—sexual signature that she is bound to is mine; who else’s could it need?” He rounded again on Dumbledore. “You must know another solution.”

Everyone turned to Dumbledore, realizing as one that he had said so little throughout the course of the discussion that he had nearly blended into the thick desk in front of him. “I appreciate your confidence in my knowledge, Severus, but I know of no other remedies to the problem.”

“You must,” Severus said, and now his voice was nearly pleading. “Dear God, Albus, you’ve _got_ to. I can’t possibly be expected to—”

He sighed heavily. “The complete cure is quite obviously unacceptable. Therefore, it will have to be the potion, Severus. I don’t see any other way.” 

“It’s only a temporary solution, Albus,” he said feverishly. “Even if I made the potion, she’d have to be dosed at least once a day. Can you imagine that particular potion having to be administered to the girl every day for the rest of her life?”

Dumbledore rose from the desk and moved to the couch where Hermione, though still unconscious, had begun to twitch in earnest. “She’s suffering, Severus. You must begin soon. Please take her to a quiet place, wake her, and explain the situation to her.”

Snape opened his mouth to protest, but could see no words to aid him. What else could be done? He moved to the couch and bent to pick up her limp body. Once she was hefted into his arms, Snape moved towards the door to Apparate away with her.

“Be gentle, Severus,” Dumbledore said quietly. “She will be confused and scared.”

Snape scowled at him for the innuendo of the first statement, but nodded and strode out the front door, Apparating away with a pop.

*****

Hermione woke feeling as if she’d just been shoved through a plate glass door. Every muscle in her body ached, her head was spinning, and she felt strangely edgy and tense, her heart racing and her face flushed. She blinked rapidly as she opened her eyes, but could make sense of little in the nearly complete darkness. Bringing her hands up towards her face, Hermione rubbed her eyes and then peered around again, trying a second time to take in her surroundings. When she noticed a tall, black-robed figure drawing a wand down from her face, she scrambled away and began screaming, her hands flying up to shield her face.

“Please!” she cried. “Please don’t hurt me!”

“ _Incendio_ ,” said a thick, deep voice she recognized. Somewhere across the room, a fire leapt to life. “For heaven’s sake, Granger, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Hermione brought her hands down slowly and gazed around her. The stone walls were completely unfamiliar, but the lack of windows suggested that they were underground. In the far corner of the room, furthest from her, was a long, thick slab table with a cauldron atop it, slowly simmering over a light flame. Every available centimeter of wall space was covered either with shelves of books or cupboards of jarred plants, powders and pickled creatures. Hermione had a jolting suspicion, at first, of where she may be, but as the walls were a dark brown stone rather than light, she realized that it was not a place she recognized. The scowling, hook-nosed man advancing upon her, however, was all too familiar. 

“Professor Snape?” she asked, and her voice sound ragged, hoarse. As if she’d been screaming. “What’s going on?”

He drew an uncomfortable-looking ladder-backed chair and set it at the side of the spartan cot from which she was beginning to sit up. 

“What do you remember about the past few days?” he asked without preamble.

Hermione stopped to paw through her memories, nearly crumbling into hysterics when she realized there were barely any. “I remember,” she said, fighting not to cry, “stopping into Madam Malkin’s on Boxing Day to have my new dressing gown hemmed. That’s the last thing I can remember.” She bit her lip, but it was no use: tears started to brim from her eyes. She swiped at them, certain that this display would annoy and incite Snape to cruelty, but he seemed to have breathed a small sigh of relief.

“You may as well let them out,” Snape said, a strange expression on his face. His hand disappeared within his robes, then brought out and offered a plain white handkerchief. “What I’m about to explain will only create more.”

She accepted the handkerchief gingerly and clutched it tightly in her hands without bringing it up to her face. “Please, sir; why am I here? What happened?”

Severus didn’t believe he could look at her pinched, worried face and still get through his explanation, so he stood and swiftly began circling the room. For several long minutes, he could not will the words from his mouth, but when they did come, a surprising amount of them tumbled out. He thanked Merlin that there were plenty of other things to look at in the room as he walked and talked.


	2. Fresh Produce, Hand-picked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione had to stuff her hands in the pockets of her jeans to help resist the urge to grab his hand and thrust the fingers in her mouth. She had never been so frustrated in her life! Her mind was no different than it had ever been: Snape was brilliant, yes, and meticulous, certainly, but he was still unpleasant and ruthlessly demanding. But her body! Her stupid, treacherous body! She couldn’t stand it! He was as beastly as he’d ever been, but because of that bloody curse, she could barely control herself being near him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - Part two of the three part smut-let. Hope you enjoy. And yes, I know how absolutely tasteless the story and chapter titles are ... what can I say? They make me laugh. Anyway, read and review. 
> 
> Enjoy,  
> ~~ ** Lady Tuesday ** ~~

**Part Two – Fresh Produce, Hand-picked**

Hermione stared in shock as her Potions professor stalked around the room. He had stopped talking several minutes ago, but she just couldn’t force a response from her mouth. It all seemed so ridiculous. Impossible, even. But why would Snape, of all people, make up such a story? Surely the one ‘solution’ he had presented – the only acceptable one, at any rate – would be even more embarrassing and unpalatable for him as it was for her. She would merely have to forget what was in the potion long enough to drink it; he would have to…. Hermione started fidgeting with her cuffs. So what reason would he have to make it up? No. It must be the truth. She must really have been put under a curse that would compel her to—come to think of it, as she mentally scanned her body’s current reactions, she knew that this confirmed he was telling the truth also. For a long, dizzy moment, Hermione felt her skin prickle before she forced herself to suppress her response to the tingling running through her.

“I do feel strange,” she said, after many long minutes of silence.

Snape nodded shortly. “The curse magnifies the longer it is allowed to continue unaddressed. I prepared as many of the preliminary stages of the potion as I could before you awoke. No doubt the sensations you are currently experiencing will increase as the final stages are completed. There are several parts of this potion that require an extra set of hands,” he stopped to grimace, damning his unconscious choice of words, “so I had to wake you for the remainder. Otherwise I would have simply dosed you upon inducing consciousness.”

Hermione took a moment to sort out what she’d just heard. “Thank you,” she muttered quickly, certain that somewhere in there, a gesture of kindness had been made on his part. Her mind kept drifting back to the few parts she seemed to be able to focus on – firstly, these ‘sensations’ (the way he had said it had unconsciously made her shiver) would increase the more time they wasted, and secondly, that he needed her hands. She bit her lip to keep from swearing as she tamped down the sudden surge of excitement and hormones that had raced along her nerves. 

“Such a shame,” Hermione mused, not realizing herself loud enough to be heard. 

“What is that?” His voice was sharp, but devoid of its usual cruel bite.

Rising from the cot, Hermione moved over to where Snape had positioned himself behind the lab table, carefully ladling other solutions in from smaller cauldrons, swiftly and precisely peeling, chopping, and preparing ingredients for the next step of the potion. As she peered into the gently rolling clear liquid in the cauldron, she responded ruefully, “That I finally get to work with you in a professional capacity and it’s for something like _this_.”

Snape raised an eyebrow at her. “And what, precisely, do you mean by that?” 

With a deep breath, she summoned up some of her inherent pluckiness. “Well, sir, for all that you’re unpleasant, cruel, exacting, unreasonably demanding—”

“Careful, Miss Granger,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous hiss.

She tried to continue as if she’d not just insulted her toxic professor and the only person who could help her. “—you _are_ a brilliant mind and a brilliant Potions master. I’m sorry that the only chance I’ve had – and likely ever _will_ have – to work with you in a non-scholastic atmosphere has to be for something so … unsavory.”

Snape looked momentarily stunned by the compliment before his features twisted into a trademark sneer. “Shameless flattery will neither aid nor cure your situation, Granger,” he spat. 

“I can assure you that if I was going to stoop to kissing arse, I would hardly start with yours.” Her body screamed that kissing any part of him seemed like a fantastic idea just at the moment, but she swatted the yearning away. “Besides, it is only flattery if it’s untrue, sir,” she said, smiling her sweetest simper. 

He growled low and turned his attention back to the clear, bubbling potion in front of him.

“Amortensia?” Hermione asked, her eyes hungrily taking in the intellectual puzzle before her. Snape nodded and shrugged, stirring silently and peering into the cauldron with a small frown. “But what about the steam? Shouldn’t it be spiraling? And the sheen isn’t quite—” 

Snape cut her off with a gruff sigh. She silenced quickly. “There are a few adjustments made for this potion.”

Hermione inhaled deeply. “Well, it must be more complex than just a few adjustments. It’s obviously the same potion, at least as a fundamental base, but there are fine distinctions in nearly every level. The sheen is a ruby shimmer, instead of mother-of-pearl, the steam isn’t spirals – it’s longer, undulating curls. Even the smells are different,” she babbled without checking her thoughts. “They’re far more complex than last time when I smelled—” 

“It has not occurred to you,” he sliced through her narrative cleanly, “that your fixations and desires may have changed since the last time you came into contact with Amortensia?”

Hermione fell completely silent and stared down at her hands, now worrying along the handle of the long glass stirring spoon resting on a clay plate in front of her. Her hands had begun to tremble slightly and she couldn’t seem to make them stop. And on the next inhale, she realized how the smells had changed, where she recognized the predominate notes. 

“Hell,” she spat out on a harsh whisper. “Bloody fucking hell.”

“Language,” he said smoothly. “You will remember that I am a professor and you, a student. Conduct yourself appropriately.”

Anger bubbled up in her as he deftly pushed her out of the way to reach for an ingredient. “That’s an awfully rich thing for you to demand, considering the circumstances, don’t you think?”

He grumbled and scowled at her, but didn’t dignify the statement with a response. Falling silent again, Hermione figured that the longer they remained in silence, the better chance she had of placating his temper until the potion was complete. One very large, very embarrassing step would have to be surmounted before it was done, but she tried to put that out of her mind. She followed the curt instructions he gave her now and then, moving as swiftly and accurately as she could manage, knowing he would berate her for good measure if she did not. Hermione had never seen a more complex potion: it was a blend of at least four, possibly as many as seven other already difficult potions. Amortensia, Wit-Sharpening Solution, Calming Draught … they were all blended seamlessly beneath Snape’s hands, and several other potions or pieces of potions slipped into the cauldron as they worked together. It was a good thing that Snape was as talented a Potions master as he was; no one else would make it through this and have a fighting chance of it being effective! There were ingredients and practices she’d never seen before. When she commented as much, Severus merely scoffed.

“Your experience with complicated potion making is hardly extensive,” he said, leaning away from the cauldron and using his thumb and middle finger to brush sweat droplets from his brow. 

Hermione had to stuff her hands in the pockets of her jeans to help resist the urge to grab his hand and thrust the fingers in her mouth. She had never been so frustrated in her life! Her mind was no different than it had ever been: Snape was brilliant, yes, and meticulous, certainly, but he was still unpleasant and ruthlessly demanding. But her body! Her stupid, treacherous body! Over the last half hour that they’d been working, she’d begun shaking in earnest, her breathing had begun to race and she couldn’t seem to sit still. Her legs twitched with anxiety, and the spot at the apex of her thighs warmed and hummed madly. She couldn’t stand it! He was as beastly as he’d ever been, but because of that bloody curse, she could barely control herself being near him. The smell – his smell – of herbs and old books and the slightly sweet-sharp smell of the damp dungeons that lingered in his robes pricked at her nose from his direction and from the lingering steam of the potion. Hermione had to stalk away from the table and circle the room, working off her edgy energy and clawing at her scalp through the riot of curls. 

Snape was not looking at her, but she felt his attention on her as if it were a spotlight. Oh, he was aware of how she was feeling. After nearly forty minutes of working next to each other, Snape sighed and picked up the stirring spoon. He had packed away all of the other ingredients, she saw, in the minutes she had been pacing the room, and now he was simply stirring and scowling. And though the movements of his left hand as it stirred were fluid and rhythmic, she could tell that he was anxious, somehow. 

“Oh, dear Lord,” she mumbled under her breath, becoming anxious along with him.

“Granger,” he said roughly. His voice was ragged, and he cleared his throat more than once before gesturing for her to come take the spoon. “Stir clockwise in three second rotations of the cauldron.” His voice was clipped, and the moment she took up the task, he strode away from her and began pacing just as she had. 

After a few seconds of silence, she got restless. “Sir?”

He startled as he turned back to regard her. 

“What is it, sir?”

“It is time,” he said shortly, but resumed pacing.

“Time, sir?” She hoped he wasn’t referring to what she was certain he _was_ , in fact, referring to. Not certain she could handle the forthcoming step with dignity and aplomb, especially considering her boiling blood and throbbing abdomen, Hermione prayed for another answer.

“The final ingredient,” he barked. She cleared her throat, unable to respond, so he continued. “There is a very small window of time to add the … ingredient, or the potion will become useless. To make matters even more complicated, my magical signature has to be present in the locale of the potion for the entirety of the time it is being brewed or it will be rendered ineffective.”

“So you can’t leave the room to,” Hermione stumbled before finishing, “procure the ingredient?”

“No,” he said gruffly. His face vacillated from disgust to embarrassment to fury and back. “I shall simply have to … no other choice …”

He looked to Hermione and the discomfort and embarrassment on his sharp, angular features was so apparent that she couldn’t help but feel a squeeze of pity for him, even through her own embarrassment and discomfort. Without a word, she turned away from him as much as the stirring task would allow and began to hum quietly to herself. She heard him sigh in relief. After a few moments, she could tell that he had settled on the cot on which she had woken, his back angled towards her. She couldn’t tell if he was moving or not, but she heard not a peep of sound. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was certain he’d be able to hear it. When Snape got up again only moments later and began pacing swiftly, Hermione bit her lip before mustering the courage to question him.

“Sir? Is there … a problem, sir?”

“Ridiculous,” he muttered. Then an angry bellow burst from him. “How can I do such a thing with you there? With a student right here in this room, how could I? Only natural, I suppose,” he began talking to himself again, “that I’d have trouble, but that doesn’t help…” 

“Oh,” Hermione said, her voice quiet and squeaking as realization dawned on her. He stopped and whirled to regard her as she stirred. She struggled for calm, but the curse was wracking through her flushed face, her trembling limbs. “Do you mean that because I’m here, you’re having trouble … getting, erm, you know…?” Unintentionally, her gaze drifted down his torso to his groin. 

Snape whirled away from her, drawing his billowing robes around his torso and scowling at her in shocked disgust. “Well, since you put it so eloquently, yes, I _am_ ,” his teeth ground in fury, “having trouble getting an erection.”

She hiccupped on her breath as he said it, but all the blood in her body seemed to rush either to her face or her core. Biting her lip against the urge, she spoke. “What if I left? You said that you couldn’t leave, but what if I left? To give you privacy.”

“Well, Miss Granger,” his voice wasn’t as smooth as his steps or body language as he strode back over to her and sneered down at the concoction which was now bubbling softly. “That’s the ingenious and, might I say, obnoxious thing about this potion: it was designed to be a two-person process. I cannot leave the room and at this stage, the potion must be in a constant state of motion.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean, sir.”

He grumbled again. “Because the inventor of the curse would not have wanted the solution to evade the curse’s intent, he wanted the brewer to be forced to seek aid.”

“Well, I was trying to help,” she said, gesturing to the spoon. Hermione was silent for a moment, and then, “Oh!” She gasped as he colored just slightly at the cheeks. “Well, sir, then I guess there’s only one thing to be done.”

Snape looked up to her and raised an eyebrow. Hermione summoned up every ounce of Gryffindor courage she possessed – she would need it all – and laid her hand on the thick robes at her professor’s hip. “I have to help you procure the ingredient.”

****

Snape darted away from her so quickly that it seemed as if the hand she had placed on him had burned through the thick wool robes to his skin. “Are you mad?” he howled. Though his face was contorted in rage, there was something wild and frightened behind his eyes. “You must be, to suggest something like that!”

Considering that she only trembled for a moment at his shouting, Hermione considered that she had taken his response rather well. “It seems like the only sensible thing to do,” she said calmly.

“Sensible?” he roared again. “Sensible?! You think having a student’s hands on me is ‘sensible’?” He started pacing again, only this time it seemed as if he were trying not to run away or hex her.

“Sir,” Hermione said, clearing her throat and trying not to blush. “It really does seem like our only option. You said yourself that the potion was designed to be a two person operation. One person stirring and one person—”

“You should _not_ be the person…doing anything other than stirring!”

“We tried that already, remember? You weren’t terribly successful.” When she said that, his face paled and he stopped pacing, gaping at her. “Unless you fancy the other way to dispel the charm—” she ignored his bellow of indignation, “—then we need that last ingredient. If you can’t get it, I will have to.”

“Absolutely not!” Snape said, though his voice was losing its vehemence. He cursed roundly at the break and wild note there. “To suggest that you could do such a thing is ridiculous and unacceptable in the extreme.”

“Well, sir,” she said, her anger beginning to rise, “we’re wasting precious minutes. How long do you suppose we have to procure and add the final ingredient?”

He resumed pacing and stared at the floor. “Seven minutes. Ten at the very most.”

“Seven minutes,” she repeated, and a bite was creeping into her voice. “You had at least five before and you couldn’t prepare yourself. Do you really think that in the next seven minutes you could,” she cleared her throat and spoke through the hitch in her voice, “get an erection, m-m-masturbate and have an orgasm in time to save the potion?”

His pacing increased and a growl escaped his throat. Damn it, she had him cornered and she knew it, though she didn’t know the reason. It would most likely take him at least a few minutes to get over the embarrassment of the situation enough to have an erection, let alone the 10-15 minutes it usually took him to achieve completion. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman, another’s touch would almost certainly send him flying in minutes.

“Well,” she said again. “Do you, Professor?”

“No,” he growled through gritted teeth. “But it is _highly_ improper—”

“Needs must,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “And it isn’t as if I’m underage. I’m a legally consenting adult.”

He tried a different tactic. “How can you be certain that you, of all people, would be able to entice me that far?” he said, a sneer slipping back onto his face.

“Statistics show that typically speaking, masturbation with a partner yields greater and quicker results than solo stimulation,” Hermione said. When he grimaced at her, she sneered back, a good likeness of his own. And lied flawlessly. “And don’t think for one minute that this is any more pleasant for me than it is for you. It’s only the curse that makes me like this, remember?”

He face flinched for a second but then he regained his smirk. “Do you even know what you’d be doing?”

Hermione raised the hand she wasn’t using to stir. It shook violently. “Look at me, Professor. I’d barely even have to try. The curse would do it for me.”

His face hardened instantly. “That’s not funny.”

“I thought it was _quite_ funny, actually.”

“You thought wrong.”

She sighed heavily and pointedly looked at her watch. “Tick tock, Professor,” she said. “What’s it going to be? Either do it yourself or come over here so I can do it for you.”

Snape growled loudly, a gruff exhalation of voice, and stalked over to where Hermione stood patiently stirring. He wrenched the spoon from her hand and took over the steady, rhythmic strokes himself. “I do not trust your concentration enough to multitask,” he said, “so I will stir. You will,” his voice broke just a tiny bit, “stand behind me and …aid from there. I will instruct you as to what to do—” 

“I’m sure I can figure it out, sir,” she said. “I have read a book or two.”

Snape ground his teeth. “With the _ingredient_ ,” he managed in a tight voice. “Once it has been procured.”

“Fair enough,” she said. When she moved to stand behind her tall, black-clad professor, though, she lost much of the adrenaline-spurred rush of confidence she had felt. What in the world did she think she was doing, putting her hands on Snape? Was she mad? Her pulse leapt and her skin prickled and her thighs ached. Yes, she was mad all right, but she was also riding high on adrenaline. And hormones.

She moved to stand close behind him, nearly flush against his body, but noticed an immediate problem. “Sir?” she said, her face reddening. “Could you take off your robes?”

“Excuse me?” he said, his voice just a tiny bit panicked. He craned his neck around to look down at her, horrified. 

She flushed further. “They’re awfully thick, sir, and I’m much smaller than you. Short arms, you see; I’m not sure if I’ll be able to … reach.”

He whirled away from her and stiffened as straight as the ramparts at the top of the Astronomy Tower. A long beat went by before he held out the spoon to her – which she took without comment – then stepped out for a moment to take off his long teaching robes and fold them neatly across the edge of the table. Without a request, he also removed his black wool greatcoat and laid it atop the robes. When he came to stand in front of her again, he was clad only in a pair of trim black trousers and a crisp white cotton shirt laced high up his neck. 

Hermione wobbled as she moved closer to him, certain that not all of it was curse effects. Surprised at the warmth that radiated from his body – she’d subconsciously wondered, at times, if he were not cold-blooded like his House’s mascot – Hermione couldn’t resist the urge to press herself completely against his back as she wound her arms around him. He stiffened but did not comment when she laid her hands, clammy palms down, on his chest. He exhaled a long breath – probably relief – when she began to skim her fingers lightly across his chest and shoulders only. She wondered if he was as nervous as she and grateful that she did not go straight for the “source of the ingredient,” as it were. His posture relaxed somewhat as she did nothing more than run her hands across his upper body.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, but his voice was oddly stilted.

“Come on, Professor,” she answered, her words muffled. She had laid her head against him and the shirt at the bottom of his wide shoulder blades stifled much of the sound. “If the problem is that it’s me, couldn’t you at least pretend I’m someone else? Isn’t that why I’m behind you?”

“Among other reasons,” he said quickly. He didn’t want to admit that he shuddered at the idea of a student looking at his genitals.

“Just pretend then,” she said, and when his muscles relaxed further, she began stroking a little more intentionally. The caresses started to stray down his stomach towards his abdomen, streaking across the tops of his thighs, but carefully avoiding the low center of his body. His breath was still deep and even, but hers was beginning to run ragged. The curse was taking hold of her fully, but she thanked providence for that because she was certain that it was the reason these instincts on how to touch him came into existence. Otherwise she would be all fumbling and stammering. She heard his breath catch when her fingernails grazed his nipples, so she did it again. This time he gasped aloud. Smiling into his back, Hermione wrapped her left arm in a strong brace around his chest and let her right hand move down … down …

She skimmed across the front of his stomach and let her fingers dance over the scratchy wool covering his groin. Though the touch had been fleeting, she felt just a hint of growing warmth. A smile blooming on her face, she pressed herself tighter against his back, feeling an electric charge scurry through her as she leaned her stomach into the tight muscles of his rear. Feeling emboldened by the increasing tempo of his heartbeat thudding beneath her face on his back, Hermione dared to shock him. Her hand moved down again and, lightening quick, cupped his testicles, squeezed gently. She heard the loud, metallic clang of glass striking the inside of the cauldron before he caught hold of himself and resumed his rhythmic stir. Her laughter bubbled out of her, low and throaty, before she could contain it and as she laughed, a gruff moan escaped him. With his unoccupied right hand, he reached out and clamped a tight grasp on her wrist. For a moment, she thought he would wrench her away, scolding her for trying to taunt him, but her breath raged in and out of her audibly when he repositioned her hand, compressing her fingers over the hot, hard length of him which twitched and swelled further under her touch. Hermione’s head whirled and she thanked Merlin that she had been grasping him so tightly with her other arm. Her knees buckled and she surely would have dropped to the floor if she hadn’t been. 

His fingers remained on hers for a few quick moments, squeezing her hand to provide satisfactory pressure as they roughly stroked the length of his erection together. He seemed to be panting now, as his right hand moved from hers and fumbled momentarily at his belt. As he worked to free it, Hermione closed her grip tighter, moving faster along him. He leaned forward slightly as he worked open his trousers and she heard him pushing aside layers of material, batting her hand away for a moment to fiddle in front of him. He growled in obvious primal triumph and she gasped, long and loud, as he closed her fingers over the warm, silky skin of his penis. He strained under her grip, now bracing his free arm on the table as he stirred; she couldn’t understand how he hadn’t snapped the spoon in half beneath the whitened knuckles of his left hand. Immediately beginning a swift, tight stroke of her hand along the length of him, Hermione leaned into her professor’s back, unable to resist the urge to gather some of the material of his shirt in her teeth and nip at the skin of his back.

Severus groaned loudly and the sound whipped through Hermione, stripping her nerve endings raw. If they didn’t do something in a moment, if something didn’t happen soon, she’d run completely barking. Instead, she whipped her left arm away from his chest and nearly screamed as she brought it back to her and yanked at the clasp of her own denims. When she thrust a hand inside of her knickers and worried her fingers urgently against the throbbing spot between her legs – a matching pace to the rough stroke of her hand along his erection, Snape moaned out, babbling something practically incoherent. He moaned on each exhalation for a moment before straightening and shaking his head as if to clear it.

“Granger,” his voice was rough, desperate, “Granger, are you … wanting?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, heavily. She knew he could feel the swift motion of her hand as she touched herself, her wrist brushing just under his rear with each finger stroke.

“Are you aroused enough to be wet?” Hearing him say it in that glossy voice was too much, her answer merely a whimper. “Then give me your hand,” he said. “Quickly. Give me your hand.”

Puzzled but needy, she removed her hand from his erection and held it out in front of him. She could feel him shake his head wildly.

“No, no! The other hand!” She was nearly frightened at how urgent and frantic the usually steady, smooth voice sounded. “The hand that has touched you … give me the hand that you have used on yourself. Give me your wet fingers.”

She whimpered again as she drew her fingers from her body, wrapping both arms around him again to offer him her left hand. His long, elegant fingers drew around her right hand again and, as he wrapped it back around his erection, then he dipped his head and took the first finger of her left hand into his mouth. Hermione’s knees did buckle this time, and only the swift movements of their combined hands on his penis and the spongy feel of his tongue swirling around her left index finger kept her from dropping completely.

“Oh, God,” she moaned. “Merlin. Shit. God. I can’t take this anymore.” 

“Me either,” he whispered as he dropped her finger from his mouth. The cold air zinged across her hand, one finger wet from his mouth, the others wet from her body. He swiftly drew her slick left hand in front of him and though she couldn’t see what he was doing, the increased pace of their joined hands and the sudden jerky twitch of his muscles clued her in. And then she felt it: hot streaks of liquid across the palm of her left hand and out across her fingers. He groaned loudly as his whole body jerked in a flurry of paroxysms, his hand stilling hers on his penis. She wiggled the fingers of her left hand tentatively, testing the feel of the spray of fluid that had stopped cascading onto her. Snape bent to calm himself and regulate his breathing. After a moment, he straightened again and Hermione marveled to see that he had still managed to keep the stirring spoon in constant motion. She smiled and shook her head.

Snape started to turn away from the table and hurriedly began replacing his clothing. “Dip your hand in the cauldron,” he said called over his shoulder, not quite smoothly. 

“But, sir—” she said, looking at the bubbling potion skeptically.

“It will not burn you; it is cool to the touch. Dip the hand that I … _used_ into the cauldron.”

Hermione bit her lip and looked between the rolling potion and Snape’s back again, hesitating. Then she looked down at her hand, bearing the long, warm smears of his semen. Something odd fluttered in her.

“Now, Granger! This is a time sensitive potion, need I remind you?”

“All right, all right,” she said and, clenching her eyes tightly, reached up and thrust her hand into the ruby-shimmering surface of the water. 

And nearly pulled it out again in shock. 

As soon as her hand had been enveloped by the liquid, every centimeter of the submerged skin felt as if it were being licked sensually by a thousand tiny tongues. She squirmed, both in surprise and in searing, roiling arousal as she held her hand in the potion, feeling as if something within the depths of the cauldron were licking her fingers clean of the evidence of what had gone on. What they had done. Her body trembled again. Snape had just … had just … _come_ on her. On her hand, coated with the evidence of her own arousal. Her face was hot and sweaty, rosy with the knowledge and – oddly – the pleasure of that knowledge. She felt arousal zing through her system again as she realized he was standing close behind her, gazing over her shoulder into the potion.

“Yes,” he said, and she could hear the smirk in his voice without even looking. “An odd sensation, isn’t it? Quite bizarre if you don’t know that it’s coming.”

Her arousal tightened her belly at his choice of words and she felt her knees nearly give way again. Surprisingly, his hands came under her armpits, supporting her weight, and a strangely concerned expression graced his sharp, hawk-like features.

“I’m terribly sorry, Granger,” he said softly. She actually thought he meant it. “You must be practically faint with the effects by now. A dosage, then, now that it’s complete. Go,” he gestured to the cot in the corner, “sit.”

Wordlessly, she followed his directive. And found that the minute she lowered herself to the mattress, she was afraid her legs wouldn’t have supported her had she not done so that very instant. And once she sat down, her limbs began to tremble so violently that she had no choice but to lay flat on her back. Within moments, Snape was kneeling at her side, a long thin glass in his hand, full almost to the brim with the translucent red potion that had writhing strings of silver glitter laced through it. The sight made her smile. Snape laced a strong arm under her shoulders and lifted her up high enough that she could look into his face. Worry and something else – something that looked much like embarrassment – pinched his features. She reached up to take the glass from him, but he moved it out of her reach and rebraced his arm behind her shoulders, angling her body so that her head fell into the crook of space between his chest and arm.

“Let me,” he said. “You’ll most likely spill it, and after all we went through to procure all the constituents, I would be most put out if that were to happen.”

Hermione smiled as much as she was able and allowed him to place the cold glass rim against her lips. She opened them dutifully and drank down the substance, feeling it spread through her system, first a cold punch of shock soon soothed by a lick of heat that quieted her shaking muscles. A giggle escaped her throat when he tipped the glass so far back – determined to get the last drop of liquid down her throat – that the opposite rim bumped against her nose. As he drew the glass away and moved to the lab table, Hermione flopped backwards against the pillow and couldn’t help laughing. She felt dizzy-drunk from the quick flash retreat of the effects that had been wracking her system for nearly an entire day, even though she was only aware of it for the past hour. And she felt strangely intoxicated by the events that had caused it all to be possible. The feel of his skin beneath her hands surging back into her mind, skin she could nearly still feel under her fingers, forced a moan from her lips that had nothing to do with the curse.

“Sleep,” she heard a rich voice say, silk covering steel. “Sleep now and let your body readjust. You can take another dose in the morning.”

Ever the dutiful student, Hermione’s eyelids dropped close and sleep welcomed her, an inviting and welcome lover.


	3. Flavor to Taste and Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His left hand wasn’t entirely sturdy as it picked up the long-handled glass stirring spoon and began to move it through the potion. She was pressing against him just lightly now; she must have realized he was preparing for the final stage. His knuckles tightened as he stirred. He wasn’t sure how he’d get through this and remain calm enough to think clearly. When her arms came around him and the small fingers reached up to his throat and began unbuttoning his robes, he gasped – and swore roundly for doing so. He didn’t stop her, but he certainly wasn’t relaxing into the process.

**Part Three – Flavor to Taste and Enjoy!**

 

Severus Snape paced the small room underneath the house at Spinner’s End. This lab had been his sanctuary as a child and student – somewhere he came to read and study and escape the torturous hollering and hitting marking every day with his parents – but now it felt like a cage. Worse than that… an aquarium. At least in a cage, he’d feel able to breathe freely. At least in a cage, there was openness and he wouldn’t feel he was gulping at the air like a deranged guppy. Something sharp in the back of his throat was causing a sick, greasy nausea in the base of his belly. He paced the room more times than he wanted to count, trying not to look at the girl sprawled across the cot near the door. He’d slept on that cot himself many times, while working on a potion he didn’t want to leave or, as a young boy, when trying to escape into a different world. Now she lay there, recovering from a curse he’d imposed upon her himself. He was sick with the thought. It didn’t matter that he’d be forced to curse her, that he hadn’t even done it of his own free will. He had put her in her current state. He felt even sicker at the jump of his pulse, the excitement that zapped through his body at the memory of how they had cured that state, temporarily. Snape paced a little faster.

After what could have been a few hours – he hadn’t really paid attention during his musings – the girl began to move fitfully under the thin sheet and began moaning. Severus made his way to her side quickly, kneeled near the head of the bed, and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. Her temperature was slightly elevated, but not dangerous. The long, thin fingers pressed against her wrist to feel for her pulse; again, it was slightly elevated but still well within a normal range. But a flush was creeping across her face and vanishing down the line of her throat and under the scooped neckline of her shirt. A thin sheen of sweat had begun to bead on her brow and, with a hitch in his throat that he swore at himself for acknowledging, he noticed that her nipples were standing out, peaked and prominent against the thin, blue cotton covering her chest. He put his hand on her forehead again and checked his watch. Her temperature didn’t indicate the distress that should have accompanied a reaction like this from the curse. Furthermore, it was far too soon after her dosage for her to be suffering from curse symptoms again; he had dosed her at nine-thirty, and it was only two forty-five. The dosage he’d given her should last at least until ten, perhaps longer. But she was clearly suffering…. Snape growled as he crossed the room and glared at the cauldron that he’d left covered on his work table. Severus Snape did not enjoy being puzzled like this. He knew the situation, knew the solution (however temporary it might be); he did not care for circumstances when his knowledge and his instincts did not match up. 

Scowling, he lifted the lid and peered into the cauldron. There was just enough left for one more dosage, and he’d hoped not to have to use it again this soon. But what other choice did he have? If she was suffering again, she had to be dosed. He couldn’t risk having her wake in the direst throes of it and try, instinctively, to seek him out for a more permanent remedy to her symptoms. Severus hated to admit weakness, especially one he’d been able to control completely for nearly two decades, but after the race of electricity and thrill he’d succumbed to with her that evening, he wasn’t sure his resolve would hold out if she sought him in full force. He growled loudly and scraped the bottom of the cauldron with his ladle, spooning it carefully into the tall glass he’d left nearby. He would pour as much as he had of it, gallons of it if necessary, down her throat, if only to save himself from her.

*****

Hermione was having a lovely dream. She stood at the top of the Astronomy Tower, feeling the crisp winter air against her body as she gazed out over the ground. The snow lay in a thick blanket over the entirety of what she could see, frosting everything from grass and rocks to trees and the far off houses of Hogsmeade Village just visible in the distance. She knew that she should feel cold, but there was no chill on her. She was warm, pleasantly so, and rested. Content. Hermione smiled at the sights laid out before her, quiet and merry. A light wind rose up and caressed her face, not a biting sting but a gentle move, almost as if the breeze was licking her. Her smile grew, but this time because she knew that she was being watched. She could feel the eyes on her back and knew that the wizard they belonged to was not as content as she. For reasons she couldn’t articulate, this made her smile more. He came to her — she had known he would — and she wasn’t surprised when long arms wrapped underneath her arms to tangle around her body, pressing her back into a strong, deep chest and warm, lean muscled thighs. She smiled at the heat behind her bum. For all the advantageous position he held, she was in control and he was not.

The hands began to move, and she let her eyes drop closed as she enjoyed the play of them across her body. Slim fingers moved lightly at first, tracing the lines of her hip and stomach, curving along the dips and sways of her breasts, all fleeting, gentle touches that made her sigh in appreciation. On their second pass, the fingers snagged on her hardened nipples, and she twitched. She could nearly see the smirk that passed over the face buried in the curls at her neck. He bit down lightly, and the fingers traveled over her nipples again, this time making her cry out. With barely any time to recover from this, his hands slithered down her body and under the waistband of her denims. She had to lean forward and brace herself against the cold stone of the ramparts as the fingers, cold from the breeze, slipped under cotton to tease at her flesh. Hermione writhed underneath the single sheet covering her body as the dream splayed out behind her eyes. Her lips dropped open as the girl who was Hermione inside her head bucked against the relentlessly pleasing hands belonging to a wizard she couldn’t see. Her lips curled up, both in the dream and on the girl on the cot. The girl on the ramparts reached down and drew the hand from between her legs, pulled it up to suck at the warmth on his fingers. The body behind her hitched and she felt her lips drop open. The hand between her legs and the hand that had been at her mouth evaporated into red liquid that trickled down her throat. Her body suddenly shuddered in a shock of cold and then smoothed again with lazy heat. Her head felt heavy, so she turned towards where he had come from – where he no longer was – and leaned back against the stone ramparts. Sleep. She would sleep for just a little while, to rid herself of that longing.

*****

Hermione woke to a rushing sound of wind above her head. Scrubbing the sleep from her eyes with the back of her hand, she pushed herself to her feet. She stared out again over the snow-crested hill from the top of the Astronomy Tower. How careless, to fall asleep here in the cold! She could have died from exposure! She prodded her limbs, checking for numbness or a blue cast to her skin, and concluded that, no, she seemed fine after all. Perhaps she hadn’t been asleep long. Or perhaps it was simply that Hogwarts’ magic was protecting her, somehow. And then Hermione remembered the sound of wind and looked up. He was hovering just above and over the side of the ramparts, smirking down at her from the back of a long, light colored broomstick. It had been polished so smooth, it looked nearly the same pale color as his skin. She smiled up at him, unaccountably cheered as she watched his rippling dark robes billow and snap in the wind. His hawk-like face melting from the smirk into a kinder smile, he reached out a hand to her. Panic zoomed through her, leaving her knees feeling watery and weak. She couldn’t possibly! Not only was his broom hovering far from the top of the ramparts, leaving her liable to fall should she reach for him, the simple act of flying terrified her! Not at all talented at things that couldn’t be learned between bound covers, Hermione found herself strangely afraid of both the flyer and the flying. He merely leaned further, offering his hand closer to her. And for reasons she couldn’t understand, that simple gesture made her emotions turn within her. Hermione stepped forward, put her small, warm hand in his long, cool fingers and felt a zing of excitement when he tugged her up with him. For one moment that should have been horrifying, she felt herself dangling over the gaping air beyond the ramparts, and then she was there, on the sturdy handle of the broom he gripped between his legs, being pulled back against his warm body where his billowing robes could fold around her too. And then he shot off like a firecracker.

What started as a scream tore from Hermione’s throat and became a shout of mirth. An arm tightened around her waist and pulled her closer into his body. His voice, a low rumble, whispered scandalous words into her ear that made her blush and whoop and throw her arms out to catch the breeze. This was fun! She’d never had fun on a broom before. She’d always been terrified and half sick, even with Harry’s tender guidance, but here she laughed and greeted that whizzing breeze happily. And when his lips grazed the skin behind her ear, she had to grasp the broom handle with both hands, so quickly did her head start to spin with arousal and lust. Hermione started for a moment at the feel of the broomstick beneath her fingers. The handle she gripped was warm and silky and pulsed slightly at her touch, like skin. Staring down at it, she barely believed that her eyes confirmed what her hands had felt: it wasn’t a broom at all! The thing beneath her fingers was … was …! Hermione whipped around, risking a fall, to look at the man behind her. Something in his face changed now when she looked at him. The eyes and smile were no longer kind and gentle, but glittering and eager, lit with that same fiery tumult she felt deep in her belly. And he groaned loudly when she clenched her knees together around that warm, hard thing keeping her aloft. His supporting arm pushed against her, grinding the core of her body harder against the shaft between her legs, and she moaned too, feeling a streak of electricity jolt through her body. When he leaned forward to take her lips, the two began to tumble towards the ground, but she found that she welcomed the fall. She gripped the shaft beneath harder, pressed harder against it. Against him. Just before impact with the snow drifts, he wrenched her around, driving into her as a cry of pleasure tore from her lips.

*****

Hermione shuddered as she hit the ground and for one wild moment where all she could see was the tangle of white cotton sheet around her, she was convinced that she was still there in the snow, waiting for more thrusts from the warm body above her. Then, reality slammed into her with the impact of her bum against the cold flagstone floor of the basement Potions lab, and Hermione blinked around at the room. A blush painted her cheek as she found herself slightly sad that this was the reality and not the heady excitement of the dream. But after only a moment, she noticed the determined circling of her Potions professor, restlessly pacing the room as he had the night before. And that same slash of physical thrill she had experienced in her dream shook her muscles. She bit her lip to tamp it down and struggled to her feet.

Untangling the sheet from her body and replacing it neatly on the bed, Hermione took a few minutes to take long deep breaths before she spoke. “What time is it? How long have I been asleep?”

He stopped pacing nearly at once and faced her, his eyes planted on her forehead. His face was as granite-strong as she’d ever seen it, but something raced behind his eyes. “You have slept for approximately eighteen hours. It is nearly four in the afternoon,” he said, much smoother than she had expected. 

“Eighteen hours!” Hermione exclaimed. “Four o’clock! How could I have slept so long? I haven’t slept that long in my entire life! Well, except for the time that I was petrified by the basilisk, but I hardly think that counts as a normal circumstance. Though, come to that, this really isn’t a normal circ—”

“For Merlin’s sake, Granger!” Snape snapped. “Must you start prattling the instant you regain consciousness?”

Hermione felt stung by the harshness, but bit her lip again and scowled at him, trying to keep tears out of her eyes. 

“You slept that long,” Snape said, his voice even again, “because the potion has a sedative in it. For obvious reasons.”

This time, when Hermione chewed on the inside of her cheek, it was in puzzlement. “But sir, the dose I was given should only have lasted for about twelve hours. I’m not so susceptible to sedatives that it should have knocked me out for an extra six or seven.”

Snape grimaced, and Hermione could see a tic in the muscles of his right cheek. “I had to dose you a second time in the early morning hours,” he said. His voice was even more clipped than usual. 

“Ah,” Hermione responded. “That was the last of the potion, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was,” he said.

“So we’ll have to make it again, won’t we?”

“Yes.”

_Oooh, very clipped. He’s unsettled some._ “Well, we’d best get started, hadn’t we? Don’t want to take the chance that I’ll be so far gone by the time we finish that I won’t be able to hold the glass again like last time.”

Snape resumed pacing. It seemed he didn’t want to be reminded of last time.

“I’ve already prepared the beginning stages,” he said, gesturing curtly to the lab table where, indeed, a medium-sized cauldron already simmered over a low flame and a cutting board lay covered with tidy piles of ingredients waiting to be prepared. 

When he made no move to take up the tasks awaiting them, Hermione crossed the room and dared to place a hand on his arm. “Straight to it, then?”

He nodded stiffly and pulled away from her to move back towards the work table. They worked in silence, but for a few short instructions or requests from one to the other. Once Hermione started recognizing the steps as those they had done the previous evening – meaning they were getting closer to the ‘final ingredient’ – she felt her throat tighten and that familiar exhilaration begin to scamper through her muscles. She started to feel shaky and weak, but she knew instinctively that it was not from the curse. No. It was from him. And that sparked something in her mind.

“Sir?”

“Hmm?” he murmured as he bent over the cauldron, examining the other solutions he had added to the Amortensia base.

“You said you had to dose me during the night?”

He straightened almost immediately, but kept working. He grunted slightly, which she took as an affirmative. Hermione set down her chopping knife, and with a great breath for courage, she began to inch behind him. 

“Why? The dosage you gave me should have lasted nearly half-way through the morning before I even regained consciousness, let alone started feeling symptoms again, according to what you told me last night.”

“You—” He cleared his throat and stiffened when he could feel the heat of her at his back. “—you seemed to be suffering from symptoms again. Sweating, twitching … moaning. I felt it only prudent to dose you again.”

His left hand wasn’t entirely sturdy as it picked up the long-handled glass stirring spoon and began to move it through the potion. She was pressing against him just lightly now; she must have realized he was preparing for the final stage. His knuckles tightened as he stirred. He wasn’t sure how he’d get through this and remain calm enough to think clearly. When her arms came around him and the small fingers reached up to his throat and began unbuttoning his robes, he gasped – and swore roundly for doing so. He didn’t stop her, but he certainly wasn’t relaxing into the process. Though her stomach fluttered in nervousness, desire and arousal swamped her as her fingers flew along the long line of buttons. Having lost the support of the buttons all the way to his waist, the heavy robes slipped from Severus’s shoulders and, with a quick switch of stirring hands to release them from his arms, they pooled at his feet; wordlessly, Snape stepped out of them and kicked them away under the table. Feeling emboldened by his silent consent of her actions, Hermione flattened herself against his back and licensed her hands to roam across his chest.

“I wasn’t suffering, sir,” she said, vaguely surprised at how gravelly her voice sounded.

“What?” Snape’s spine snapped straight, and his voice was as sharp as a sleigh runner. “What do you mean?”

Not to be deterred, Hermione reached up to release the buttons at his throat, leaving his shirt hanging open at the neck. “I wasn’t suffering, sir. It wasn’t the curse.” Her hands skimmed down his chest again, but unlike the previous night, they did not pause to smooth his ruffled nerves; no, she moved both palms to the growing heat between his legs. He grunted gruffly as her fingers wound around the tented rising at the front of his pants. The rhythm of his stirring faltered for more than a moment before he resumed an easy pattern. “I wasn’t suffering from the curse. I was having a dream, Professor.” She began stroking his erection with one hand, working his belt open with the other.

“A-ah,” he gasped as she raked her nails along the wool-covered length of him. “A dream?”

She nodded against his back and then, feeling daring, knowing he was nearly at her mercy, she dropped her hand from his belt and pushed back on his upper chest, causing him to bend backwards towards her. Placing her lips into the lank strands of his dark hair, she whispered into his ear, “About you, Professor.” With a smirk, she let go of his chest, letting him rocket forward suddenly, where he had to bend over the table again, nearly losing his motion in the cauldron all together.

Her hand flew along the outline of his erection as she curled around his bowed back. “Oh yes, sir, I was having a dream about you. We were standing on top of the Astronomy Tower, and you were doing all the wonderful, scandalous things to me that I was doing to you last night. And it felt _amazing_. You must have seen me reacting to that dream, sir.” 

Snape was panting as he hunched over, just barely reining in his temper and instincts enough to keep stirring the potion. 

“I wanted you so much, Professor. I still do.” 

He moaned and clamped his hand over hers as she clutched him. “More,” he growled.

“Can I watch, sir?”

He barely registered her words, just her hands. “What?” he asked. His mind was foggy with sensation. Stirring and breathing … all he was capable of. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Can I watch, sir?'” Hermione felt nearly crazy with it, now. The curse had kicked in, but it seemed only the fuel to the flame, not the flame itself, now as the inferno raged in her body. Her breasts ached as she pressed them against his back, that thrumming center of her thighs screamed for attention. For _his_ attention. 

“I want to watch your body, your face, as I get that last ingredient. Can I watch, sir?” She timed her request with a tighter squeeze along the shaft of his penis. He groaned, his breath coming ragged and fast as she flicked her fingers across his testicles.

“Stop, stop!” he snapped. Snape stood and whirled to face her. His eyes were wild and fiery, his free hand clenching on the table top behind him as he stared down at her.

Startled, Hermione backed away a step or two. He was going to push her away now, tell her that she’d gone too far, that he’d get the ingredient on his own. But he didn’t. He thrust the spoon towards her (which she took quickly and resumed his stirring), which was apparently only so that he could use both of his hands to loosen his belt and release all the front buttons of his trousers. He leaned back against the table and resumed the stirring of the cauldron, leaving the front of his trousers hanging open so that she could see the translucent linen of his undershorts and just a hint of the dark hair and pale skin beneath. She couldn’t draw her eyes away from the tiny portion of the trail of dark hair that pointed down his stomach, peeking out from under the hem of his shirt and disappearing into his undershorts. Wrenching her gaze away from his groin, Hermione raised her eyes to lock onto the heat striking her from the black eyes of her Potions professor.

Spreading his free arm in a wide gesture of surrender, he smirked down at her. “If you want to see my body, if that is what you desire, take up your hands and bare it to your purpose. If you have the courage.”

Her lips quirked up in a smirk mirroring his. Did he expect her to balk at that feeble challenge when she had requested in the first place? Or did he expect her to accept? Either way, she strode forward and laid hands that only trembled slightly against his abdomen. Her legs straddled his knees, and she set her fingers to work unbuttoning his shirt from the bottom up towards his throat. Laughter nearly left her at the look of surprise quickly smothered on his face. He had invited her to bare his body and she took him at his word. When his shirt was open, she trailed her hands down his chest and noticed with a grimace that they had begun to shake. 

Snape seemed to have noticed too. “The curse?” he asked quietly. 

She just nodded, her fingers playing with the waistband of his undergarments. 

He sighed and stood. “Then perhaps we should be quick about this,” he said.

“No.” Hermione’s voice was quiet but firm. “I was worse off than this yesterday and I made it through just fine. I want to … I want to take my time today. Enjoy it.”

A gruff exhalation escaped him at her last phrase, and he leaned back against the table again. She had no idea how he could keep calmly stirring the potion when she unbuttoned the last vestiges of clothing separating his penis from her hands, but somehow he managed it. He didn’t manage to stifle his moan of pleasure, though, as her hands pushed the fabric of his pants and trousers away from his slim hips and wrapped her fingers around his long, serpentine erection. She had expected him to close his eyes, to drown in the sensation as she stroked him – that’s what she would have done had roles been reversed – but no, he watched her with those bottomless black eyes. Intense, heated caresses of his eyes as she gripped his penis and stroked with one hand, let her fingers dance through the fine dusting of hair on his chest with the other. A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips as she stared down at the working of her hand over his length. Her fingers looked so small wrapped around the pinkish skin, so much more flushed with life than the rest of his body. Unable to stop herself, both from curse and instinct, Hermione leaned in and laid her lips to his chest. Letting her tongue dart out, she sampled the taste of his skin and smiled as he drew breath sharply beneath her lips. When his left hand came up from the table to fist in her tumble of curls, she tightened her grip around him and stroked faster. 

The hand at her hair slipped downwards until she felt the slim digits cup and squeeze her breast. She moaned against his chest and bit down quickly, a fleeting glance of teeth across his nipple. In response, his fingers tugged on the peaked rising of her own nipple. Pressed against him from lips to knees, Hermione ground the core of her against his hip, trying to relieve that wonderful, horrible aching pressure building up between her legs. If she didn’t feel some relief, she felt as if she’d shatter long before the potion was ready. But she needn’t have worried; the elegant hand moved again, this time to pluck apart the fastening of her jeans and slither under the waistband and into her knickers, just as it had in her dream. His hand had moved so quickly, she’d barely had time to register what he was doing until his purpose was already in progress. Hermione cried out loudly as she felt his cool fingers slip into her humid flesh. Emitting noises partly of triumph and partly pleasure, Hermione’s voice mingled with gasps and groans snaking from the lips of her professor as he stroked at her clitoris, making her writhe against him in ecstasy, in agony. Without preamble or warning, his lips descended upon hers, swallowing her whimpers of desperation and pleasure. Hermione drank hungrily of his lips, thrusting her tongue into his mouth the instant he parted his lips, letting the thrust-retreat of the slippery muscle match the strokes of her hand along him. She gulped down his hot breath on a moan, bucking against his fingers, feeling a tiny trickle of moisture along her own fingers as she plied them against his erection. 

Severus suddenly, stupidly, wished he’d been born with at least five more hands. Her fingers raced over him, curled around his erection, scratching his chest as she bucked against his fingers, moaning and whimpering into his mouth. He wanted to touch her everywhere his fingers could reach, just to pull more of those inarticulate, desperate noises from her. They landed on his ears soft like snow on cotton but sought his nerves and shook hard. The hand not tightening around his penis clutched at his shoulder as she began to shudder around his fingers. His callused thumb plied harder against that thrumming center of her passion, and he pressed two thin digits into her tight, wet heat. Suddenly, she clasped a fistful of his hair and cried out, her knees buckling as she climaxed. Her grip on his erection had become almost painful, her hand in his hair bruising, but he didn’t care. He drew his hand out from her center and let the wet tips of his fingers dart under her shirt to circle her nipple. She shivered. 

“Do you want me, Granger?” he spoke, a husky whisper. 

She could only nod. 

“All of me?” 

A desperate squeak of voice slipped from her lips. 

He seemed to understand. “Because of the curse or because of me?” 

She bit the inside of her cheek as his still-damp fingers drew little swirls around her breast. He tugged on the soft skin, pulling an answer from her. “Both,” she said breathlessly. “I think I wanted this long ago, but I didn’t think I _should.”_

“You _think_ you wanted this?” he asked. “Or you _know?”_

“I know it,” she said and blushed deeply. “Sir.”

The way she had said that honorific, that sensual, desperate caress, coupled with the searing heat behind her eyes confirmed her words. This was not the first time she’d desired him. And that thought did more to charge his lust than even the hand she still had loosely encircling his erection. He drew his hand from her breast and angled her chin up to meet his steely glare.

“So your blood has warmed for the cold bat of the dungeons before, then?” His smirk was epic, as was her blush as she nodded. “And you are certain that you want all of me? No silly Gryffindor games of catch and release?”

She shook her head and lowered her eyes. 

“Tell me what you want then,” he said, leaning over and letting the words fall, hot and wet, on the shell of her ear.

“I want you to take me,” she admitted shyly. Then, her cheeks coloring even deeper, she shivered and said, “Sir.”

He chuckled just a little bit, hearing in her words what she _hadn’t_ said as much as what she had. “You enjoy that, don’t you? Asking me for such favors and calling me sir?”

She nodded, still staring at his navel. His hand, quick as lightning, fisted in the back of her hair and wrenched up her head so she stared into those deep, dark eyes. 

“Be sure,” he growled out, hungry and commanding.

“I’m sure,” she said and lunged up to meet his lips.

Thrusting his tongue into her mouth, Severus wrapped both arms around her middle and hoisted Hermione off the ground. The moment the stirring rod dropped idle – clanging against the side of the cauldron from the loss of Snape’s ceaselessly moving hand – the sparkling red brew began to bubble and froth angrily. With a horrified gasp, she wrenched her lips away from his as he turned to deposit her on atop the work table. 

“But, sir!” she cried. “The potion!”

“To hell with the potion,” he rumbled low in his throat. “You won’t need it.”

And with that, he fisted a hand back in her hair and pulled her head back to meet his own. Their tongues chased each other heatedly, hands pawing at clothing as the slippery muscles battled within Hermione’s mouth. Severus’s long fingers made swift work heaving her shirt over her head, and in an uncoordinated attempt to both shuck the garment from her arm and still pepper his neck with heated kisses, a jerk of her hand set the cauldron next to them tumbling to the ground, spattering the cold stone with the potion. Neither paid much heed, but for the slight hiss of cold when tiny red drops hit Hermione’s flushed skin. A wave of his hand and the drops were gone. Hermione’s legs seemed to be acting of their own will as they wrapped around Severus’s waist, digging her heels into the small of his back to draw him closer. She leaned back on her hands and moaned as his mouth stroked down her chest, dipping into the valley between her breasts, his tongue chasing the line of her plain white brassiere. Gasping, Hermione lifted her hips so that the centre of her body pressed against his chest; restraining hands brought her back down to the table, but she couldn’t help the undulations of her hips as his mouth covered her skin. Struck by a strange urge, she opened her eyes and watched him. So bizarre and surrealistic, the sight of her professor’s lips bent around her cotton-covered breast, then peeling back so he could let his tongue trail a line down the centre of her body. She knew where he was headed, and it made her blood sing and her breathing race.

The dark eyes flew up to hers then, locked onto her gaze, and gave her a look that should have scorched her to pieces. With a smirk, he traced his tongue along the open waistline of her denims, just skirting around where her knickers rested. She moved impatiently and he chuckled. He obliged her and set his hands to pulling at her denims, but she had the strong impression that it was only because the curse was starting to ripple through her. Wriggling in an uncoordinated effort to help him, Hermione managed to free herself of her jeans and kick them to the floor. A yelp of surprise escaped her lips when his whole mouth clamped suddenly over the apex of her thighs, dampening the already moist cotton covering her. She squirmed, trying to direct his lips and move her knickers, but he gripped forceful hands on the tops of her thighs and held her still, sucking at the fabric of her knickers until she could feel the slick movements of his tongue chafing the material across the center of her body.

“God,” she mumbled. “Shit! Merlin! Fuck, please, _please_ —!” It was all just a stream of meaningless noise at the end when her pleading dissolved into frustrated whimpering. He chuckled against her, his breath cooling the fabric on her heated skin, which just made her cry out more.

“Soon enough,” he said, a silky laugh on his breath. “Soon enough.”

“Please, Professor,” she said, writhed against his restraining hands. “I can’t take it anymore. The curse, it’s too much …”

And the note of desperation that had touched her voice made him abandon the teasing and yank aside her knickers, plunging his tongue into her body. A wild cry tore from her throat, heavy with triumph, and she began to rock her hips against the movements of his thrusting tongue. Pants escaped her, loud and ragged, as she ground against his face. 

“I thought you said—” She stopped to moan. “—that it was only—ah!—sex that would lift—oh, God—the charm completely.” 

His thumb came up to stroke against her clitoris and her legs twitched and shook. “It is,” he answered against her skin.

“Then why—unh!— why are you taking the time to do this, when we could have just gotten straight to it?”

Snape glanced up from between Hermione’s thighs and fixed her gaze with a penetrating look, keen as a knife-blade. “Because I have been dying to taste you,” he said, his lips quirking up in a tiny smile. Then he extended his tongue and, his eyes never leaving hers, laved a long lick all the way from her opening to the tip of her clitoris. 

But it was the concentrated heat and pure desire in his eyes that lanced her climax through her. Hermione’s arm muscles trembled and buckled, dropping her flat on her back against the tabletop as she tried to relax her quivering muscles. Her thighs wavered and chilled as she dully registered her professor moving away from her momentarily, but she couldn’t seem to force her body to move to correct the fact. The heat of his body returned quickly, though, and this time it radiated directly from his bare skin onto hers as he leaned over her. Quaking muscles or not, Hermione curled all her limbs around the naked torso of her smirking professor as he bore down on her. She squeaked, feeling the silky skin of his erection press against her upper thigh. A muttered incantation and the table dropped a few inches to situate just below his waist. He smirked. A hand brushed against her core as he grasped his erection; the blunt end of his penis stroked against her wetness but didn’t enter her. She moaned.

“Say it, Granger,” he growled, his voice low and husky as he bent to her ear. “Beg me.”

A long, keening wail escaped her as he pressed just the tip of himself inside her. He bent and took a nipple into his mouth. She wriggled and tried to push herself down onto him, but his weight held her in place.

“ _Beg_ me to fuck you right here. Right now.” His tongue darted out and traced a path around the shell of her ear. Another scant half inch of him pressed into her. “I know you’re aching to say it. _Beg me._ And don’t forget to be polite.”

She bit her lip to stifle a moan momentarily but then cupped her hands around his face to push him back so she could look into his eyes. Fixing her most innocent and open look on her face, Hermione said, “Please, Professor Snape, please I’m just dying to feel you inside me. I’m running mad with how much I want you.” He bit his lip, his face taut, and made to comply, but she put her hand on his chest and held him back. Fighting a smirk, she knew she wanted to taunt him just as he had her, and if playing the naïve but naughty student heated his blood the way it did hers, she’d make him squirm with it. “Sir,” she whimpered, caressing the word with her whole mouth. “Sir, won’t you _please_ put your cock in me? I’m begging you, Professor … _please_ fuck me.”

Something seemed to crack in his face, though it was set into hard lines, and with a single forceful thrust, Snape buried himself in Hermione’s hot, wet and shaking body. Though the feeling of contact and fullness zinged through her, she couldn’t fight a wince at the sharp tearing sensation as he broke through her hymen and her body screamed at this first intrusion. The noise that left her throat was one of startled pain, not the previous husky arousal.

Snape snapped up at a higher angle to look down at her and, before she could turn her head to hide the expression, caught the tight discomfort and single line of tears snaking down from her eye. “Oh, Merlin,” he whispered. “This is not your first—?”

Trapped, Hermione met his eyes, her face red with embarrassment, and nodded. He swore roundly, using words she’d only ever heard out of the roughest sorts of people, but made no move to draw back from her.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered quietly, the tears starting to run down her cheek again. “I-I didn’t think you’d mind—”

“Mind?” he practically shouted. “It’s not me who should mind! You … you should have _told_ me … You shouldn’t have let me take something so …. Not a professor and certainly not _me._ You shouldn’t have let me take something so….”

“So…?” she prompted when he didn’t finish.

“Precious.”

After a long silence, she said, “I wanted you to have it. I always have. I just thought that if I told you, you wouldn’t have taken it.”

“Well, of course I damned well wouldn’t have!” he roared. 

“Exactly,” she said, but she was smiling. “I want you to have it,” she said again. When he just scoffed, she experimentally clenched her inner muscles around his erection, causing him to groan and droop forward against her.

“If you expect me to have any control whatsoever, for the love of God don’t do that again.”

She laughed. And did it again. His moan was loud this time, and she heard his knees bang against the table. 

“Is there any pain?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not anymore.” Then, a smirk stole across her face. “Do I have to beg you to finish what you started?”

“Impugning my honor, Granger?” Snape said, his voice husky. He began to pant a little as she rocked her hips against him. “Respect, Miss Granger. Respect for your professor.”

Smiling, she said sweetly, “Please, Professor Snape?”

He drew out and thrust into her deeply. “Again.”

“Please, sir.”

Another sharp thrust. A long moan, a deep growl. “Louder!”

“Harder, Professor,” Hermione pleaded. “Please, sir!”

His hips flexed underneath the long legs she wrapped around his waist as he began to thrust against her faster, harder. Placing his hands on the tabletop on either side of her head for balance, he tilted his hips every time he jolted deep within her belly, his erection striking that place within her that caused her to writhe and whimper and exhale her breath on a long, low groan.

“Yes—God!” Hermione barely recognized her own voice. It didn’t matter, as long as he kept pushing into her.

“Yes—fuck, yes!” Severus’s low, smooth tones were more ragged than he’d heard himself in decades; such was the effect she was having on him. He couldn’t restrain the wild gyration of his hips as he plunged again and again. 

Hermione’s body was shivering. Throwing her head back, she arched off the table, tilting her hips downward so he would strike harder against that wonderfully thrumming spot deep within her. A fine layer of sweat coated her body and caused him to slip a bit as he thrust, the slick sliding of the centers of both of their bodies pleasantly sticky. Feeling a signaling tingle building within her belly, Hermione reached up and clutched at her Professor’s hair, dragging his head down to meet hers and taking a fierce kiss from him as her body shattered into pleasure. When her mind became clear again, she noticed that his thrusts were lightning quick and erratic, and it only took a last clenching of her inner muscles to send him after her into climax, slumping over her as the uneven jerking of his hips quieted.

It seemed like years, ages perhaps, for both of them to regain a semblance of working intelligence and clarity. Eventually he lifted himself up again to look down at her, a lazy smile touching her lips and her hands skimming across her breasts idly. He didn’t speak, but she neither expected nor needed words. After what was most likely only a few minutes, his lips began trailing a path across her shoulders and collarbone before starting to wander down towards her breasts. At first, her voice was a contented, indulgent hum of pleasure, but then she gasped in shock when she felt her heart start to race and her muscles to shake again.

“Um, sir?” she asked quietly. He made no response, just sucked on the swell of the side of her breast. She cleared her throat. “Sir?”

“In a moment,” he murmured and went back to his ministrations. Her eyes crossed when he took a nipple into his mouth. 

“But, sir—” 

“Do shut up, Granger. I’m busy.”

Almost as if they had done so without her consent, her hands rose up and wound into his hair, pressing his face closer to her skin. She scowled down at them. Damn things; she’d never think straight if he kept doing that. “Sir, I’m concerned. I’m feeling curse symptoms again.”

“Of course you are,” he said and moved to her other breast. 

Her face heated as she noticed one of his hands move down between their legs. He began stroking his growing erection, his prominent knuckles scraping deliciously at the apex of her thighs with every upstroke.

“But I thought that having sex would—”

At this, he did look up at her, but did not stop the motion of his lower hand. “You didn’t think that’d be all there was to it, did you? One quick, simple shag and it’s over?”

Hermione scoffed despite herself. “I wouldn’t call that a simple shag.”

A deep smirk lit his face. “Compared to the rest of my repertoire, I assure you, that was the less inventive end of the program.”

Hermione uttered a few of those expletives she’d heard him drop earlier before clearing her throat and trying to ignore the tongue being reapplied to her nipple. “So that’s not it, then? The curse isn’t over with?”

“Oh, no,” he hummed against her skin. “No, the Dark Lord was quite adamant, when inventing this curse, that the effects require a thoroughly scandalous amount of sexual acrobatics.” She made an inarticulate gurgling noise in the back of her throat and finally allowed herself to succumb to the feelings he was evoking. He laughed against her. “Now be a good girl and still your tongue.”

“Yes, sir. I think I can fight through it, if you can.”

*****

Severus Snape leaned back against the leg of the lab table and tried desperately not to move. Even smiling hurt. He’d bruised his right elbow, both knees, strained several fairly sensitive areas of his body and his entire groin was chafed from contact. But had he been able to smile without smarting, he would have plastered his face with such a grin that anyone witnessing it would have thought him under a peculiarly well-executed Confundus Charm. Beside him, Granger lay on the floor, sprawled out like a crime scene victim, mewling like a kitten but smiling gently. Eventually, she giggled to herself.

“What, may I ask, is so funny, Miss Granger?” he said, only a parody of his teacherly scolding tone. 

Much to his surprise, she burst out in a riot of laughter. He raised an eyebrow, but this only seemed to send her off in another peal of whooping guffaws. “I just shagged Professor Snape,” she said and started cackling like a banshee gone wrong.

He scowled at her. “Am I to understand that you have sustained brain damage from curse effects? Or are you suffering some other form of hysteria I’m not aware of?”

She sat up, wincing as she did so, and faced him, grinning like an idiot. “No, I’m not insane or hysterical,” she said levelly, but full of amusement. “It’s just wonderfully funny to me.”

He scowled even deeper, the familiar set of lines on his face etching once more into their places. “I find it highly offensive that sexual congress with me seems to amuse you so.”

Even though she was clearly uncomfortable moving, Hermione wriggled over to him and deposited herself between his spread legs. Despite his annoyance at her levity, he found he quite enjoyed the bounce of her bare breasts as she moved. His frown eased just a bit.

“I’m not laughing at the idea of shagging you,” said Hermione. “I’m laughing that I’ve been wanting to for all this time and this is how it ended up happening.” A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “But you know, Professor,” she said, suddenly serious. “I’m concerned about what happens if I start suffering from the curse again.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Miss Granger, we have been engaging in sexual acts on and off for the last four hours. We’ve both had no less than seventeen orgasms—”

“Twenty-three,” she corrected, smiling.

He continued as if she’d not spoken. “—and performed nearly every position I know—”

“Nearly?” she asked, incredulous. “What else is there?”

“—I highly doubt you are still suffering from curse symptoms, and unless someone reapplied the curse to you, you will not suffer them again in the future.”

“Oh, no, sir,” she said seriously. “I think I shall. In fact, I’m almost certain that once we both return to Hogwarts, I’ll have a relapse. Whatever would I do, sir, if I needed your help again?”

Comprehension slammed into him like a stampeding hippogriff, and he fought not to laugh aloud. Schooling his face into a neutral but somewhat martyred expression, he sleekly answered, “Then I suppose you would be forced to visit me for more relief of a sexual nature.”

She nodded, her face carefully dutiful. “Thank you, sir. It’s a great comfort to know that you’d sacrifice yourself, should I need more attentions in the future. I’m almost certain I will.”

“I live to serve, Miss Granger.”

After a moment, her face brightened and she bit her lip, fighting a mischievous smirk. “You know, I’ve always wondered whether the rumors about you were true.”

His eyebrows nearly brushed his hairline. “And what rumors would those be?”

Now Hermione blushed crimson. “Well, I have overheard Pansy and some of the other Slytherin girls—” She stopped to choose her words carefully. “— _theorizing_ about what one of your detentions would be like for a girl who was of age.” 

His dubious expression melted into a thick smirk. “Is that so?”

She nodded and blushed further. “There was plenty of discussion of spanking … among other things. I’ve always pondered the accuracy of those theories.” Hermione clutched her lip between her teeth and peered at him from underneath a curtain of hair, trying to gauge his reaction.

Severus leaned over, tracing his tongue along the soft curve of jaw just below her ear. “Perhaps you’ll have to cause some mayhem and find out,” he purred.

“If you insist, sir,” she said fervently.

 

_~~ Fin ~~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that the fic is over, I don’t mind posting the stipulations of the challenge. Didn’t want to put it first, as I felt people might be hunting for the challenge elements rather than simply enjoying the material. So here is the challenge outline: __
> 
> _We have all read fics that have stressed the importance of maidenhead blood in potions, and that Snape usually is the one to collect it from Hermione. But what about a specific potion that requires a male contribution instead? This challenge asks that you create a story based on the fact that Hermione needs a sample of Severus' semen for a particular potion._ Okay, so I missed the deadline, but who cares? _  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_
> 
> _Rules:_
> 
> _* It must be Snape's semen._  
>  * Hermione must, as always, be 17 years or older.  
> * The potion in question is needed to save another canon character's life, anyone from Snape to Dumbledore (yes, I said Dumbledore - read the Optional list to see why).  
> * Lupin and McGonagall must be involved in the plot in some way.  
> * This causes a lot of embarrassment for Snape and Hermione.  
> * Hermione is attracted to Snape before the fiasco even begins.  
> * Snape must have some embarrassing male-anatomy moments (as though he wouldn't be embarrassed enough already!). 
> 
> _Optional:_
> 
> _* This is post-HBP, but you may or may not disregard Dumbledore's death._  
>  * Snape can gather the ingredient by himself or another (preferably Hermione)  
>  may have to collect it. 
> 
> __
> 
> Thanks to all of you for reading my deliciously smut-tastic little bit of PWP.


End file.
